INNOVATION AND ACTIVISM

Yosef Yarden

Cancer researcher

“Professor Yosef Yarden is among the most important cancer researchers in the world,” the Israel Prize Committee stated when it gave him the 2017 honor in Life Science Research.

Yarden, of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, works at the highest level of his field, concentrating on immunotherapy approaches to fighting cancer. Specifically, he is studying how to create antibodies that will prevent cancerous growths from being able to reproduce within a patient’s body.

“We started a way to block the growth factors [that enable] collaboration between the tumor and the host,” Yarden stated.

When he received the EMET prize, it was noted that Yarden’s methods “paved the way for a new approach in the development of drugs that have been put into use and saved the lives of many cancer patients.”

Yarden, a symbol of Israel’s prowess in the medical world, is unabashed about the importance of his research. “The future is very much in immunotherapy,” he says. (Photo credit: Israel Cancer Association.)